“Maybe, after fourteen years, he felt secure that he would not be discovered, that the secret died with Kristen. But the truth is out, and after so long, Kristen will finally have her justice.
“Thank you for listening and thank you for serving.”
Judge Stiller gives me the floor, and I stand to give our opening statement. “Ladies and gentlemen, Ms. Silverman is correct in some of what she told you. She will present evidence saying that Kristen McNeil and Noah Traynor were together at the murder scene and that they had a disagreement that turned physical.
“We will not dispute any of that; we will acknowledge it and accept it as fact. We encourage you to do the same. But she will go on to say that those facts mean that Noah Traynor murdered Kristen McNeil, and we will vigorously dispute that, because they don’t, and he didn’t.
“Ms. Silverman describes Mr. Traynor’s failure to come forward and tell his story as consciousness of guilt. It is not; it is consciousness of fear. The media was going crazy back then; they were buying the police theory that whoever left the DNA evidence behind was the guilty party.
“Mr. Traynor knew that if he was found to be the person with that DNA, he would be accused of the murder, no matter what he said. The fact that we are here today is evidence that he was right. Perhaps he should have come forward anyway, but his not doing so was out of fear, not guilt.
“But keep one thing in mind. While Ms. Silverman would have you believe that an innocent Mr. Traynor would have come forward to help the police find the real killer, that simply is not true. He had no more idea who the real killer was than the police did.
“This tragic murder did not happen in a vacuum and was not the result of a dispute among teenagers. Kristen McNeil was caught in a world that she could not handle, with evil people who cared nothing about her life. So they took her life and went on with theirs.
“You will meet those people, though some of them are no longer with us, additional victims of the violent world in which they lived. Noah Traynor has never been part of that world, and never will be.
“Thank you.”
Jeremy Kennon has agreed to meet me here, at my office.
He is doing so despite an obvious reluctance to meet with me at all. That he’s come here is, I suspect, because he doesn’t want to be seen with me at his office, or in a public place.
It hurts my feelings, but I’ll get over it.
Kennon shows up at ten after six, which is only ten minutes late. He was coming from his office, so maybe work got in the way. In any event, he makes no effort to apologize.
“Thanks for coming.”
“No problem. Nice place you got here, right above the fruit market. Do you pick up a cantaloupe when you drop off the rent check?”
“How did you know that? Get one when you leave, and get some peaches as well; they’re unlike anything you’ve ever tasted.”
He nods; I don’t think he wants to continue a fruit-based conversation. “Anyway, better we meet here than at my office; you’re not that well loved at NetLink right now.”
“I’m really a joy, once you get to know me.”
He grins. “I’ll bet. But if you’re waiting for an invite to the NetLink Christmas party, you can safely make other plans.”
“I’ll do that.”
“So why am I here?”
“I need you to give me a road map. I think that Kristen McNeil may have been having a relationship with someone at NetLink.”
He nods. “Kyle Wainwright. We’ve been over that.”
“I’m talking about someone older.”
“Can you be more specific?”
I shake my head. “I wish I could. That’s why I need you to give me a road map, tell me who she had contact with while she was there. It doesn’t have to be someone who is a current employee.”
He pauses for a while. “I’d have to think about it. It’s been a lot of years, and she wasn’t in my department.”
“She worked for Arthur Wainwright, didn’t she?”
He nods. “As an intern-slash-assistant.”
“Anything unusual about their relationship?”
“Oh, come on. You can’t possibly think that Arthur would…”
“I don’t know Arthur. My only contact with him was when he threw me out of his office, and I thought he handled that with incredible charm and grace.”
“He was being protective of his son.”
“His son is not eighteen anymore, and why would he need protection in the first place?”
Kennon, instead of answering the question, says, “I owe everything to Arthur Wainwright. He’s believed in me, he’s mentored me, he’s promoted me, he’s paid me. You will not get me to say anything bad about him because I have nothing bad to say about him.”
“I’m not trying to. What I’m trying to do is get a picture of what Kristen McNeil’s work life was like fourteen years ago.”
He nods. “I’ll think about that, but I doubt I’ll come up with much. I don’t think your answer is at NetLink, but I know it is not in Arthur Wainwright’s office.”
I’m not going to push it with Kennon; he’s clearly not going to give me any negative information on Wainwright, and I don’t want Kennon warning Wainwright that he’s on my radar. But he is dead center on it.
Taillon called Arthur Wainwright. That is a crucial piece of information, and while I’m not sharing it with Kennon, I’m going to share it with the jury.
What I need to focus on now is what Wainwright’s motive could have been. I can come up with a number of possibilities, but what they all have in common is that they don’t stand up to logical scrutiny.
The most obvious, but least likely, is that Arthur was exacting revenge on behalf of his son. Kristen was dumping Kyle, and likely cheating on him, so Arthur had her killed. That would seem like a ridiculous overreaction, and I can’t see Arthur going there.
Another possibility is that Arthur was the older man Kristen spoke about. Maybe she was pressuring him, and he was afraid of the devastation to his life and reputation of the revelation that he was having an affair with a teenage girl. So he killed her to keep her quiet, as a means of self-protection.
A third theory might be that she had learned something about Arthur’s business life that would have been devastating to him and maybe NetLink should it have been made public. This is somewhat more likely than the two previous theories, but that’s only because it’s a low bar to get over. NetLink has operated without a hint of scandal for the past fourteen years, which argues against its harboring an awful secret.
The only thing I know for sure is that Taillon was in touch with Arthur Wainwright around the time of Kristen McNeil’s murder.
If Noah Traynor is going to get his freedom back, I’m going to have to figure out why.
Sergeant Theresa Swanson is Jenna’s first witness.
She is here simply to set the scene, in this case the crime scene. Swanson and her partner, Luther Jackson, were the first officers there. Swanson was just a patrolwoman at the time; Jackson has since retired from the force.
“What brought you to Hinchliffe Stadium that day?” Jenna asks.
“There was a nine-one-one call reporting a body that was found there. A teenager named Douglas McCann had seen the body, ran home, and told his father, who called nine-one-one.”
“Were they there when you arrived?”
Swanson nods. “They were.”
“Please describe what you saw.”
“A young female adult was lying in the shrubbery. She was wearing a blue blouse and a pair of jeans. The blouse was torn, and the jeans were unbuttoned but not pulled down and not torn. We determined that she was deceased. There were no obvious wounds, but her head and neck were bent at an unnatural angle.”
“What did you do?”
“We called in the report, as well as bringing in EMS and the coroner, and secured the scene.”
“Did you see any signs of a possible perpetrator?” Jenna asks.
> “We did not.”
“How long was it before backup arrived?”
“Homicide detectives were there within seven minutes, and we turned the scene over to them. The ambulance and forensics both arrived a few minutes after that.”
“Did you examine Ms. McNeil’s body?”
“We did not, other than to determine that she was deceased and could not be helped by CPR.”
Jenna has photographs of the scene and body projected onto the screen set up in the courtroom. The jury seems to recoil in horror when they see Kristen’s body, as Jenna knew they would. That is why she had the photos shown; they don’t say anything that hadn’t already been described.
But the tactic is powerful, and even though the pictures are not at all gory, they are devastating images. A young girl was lying in the dust and shrubs, her life and dignity taken from her. The jury is going to want to punish someone for that, and their only option is Noah.
I can get nothing from Swanson on cross-examination, so I decline to ask any questions. I don’t want to appear to be nitpicking since I have already said in opening statements that we are not going to claim that Noah was not there.
Swanson said nothing negative about Noah at all, which will make her unique among the prosecution witnesses. But with only a limited number of bullets in my cross-examination gun, I’ll save them for when they might be able to do damage.
The next witness Jenna calls is Lieutenant Stan Oglesby, of the Homicide Division. He is a direct report to Pete Stanton, who has often told me that Oglesby is an outstanding cop. Pete said that as if it was a positive; if he was a defense attorney, he might feel differently.
Oglesby arrived at the scene and took control of it, but the visual he describes is similar to how Swanson described it.
“Were you able to determine the time of death?” Jenna asks.
“I didn’t try; that is much better left to the coroner. But there were certain signs that she had been there for some length of time.” Jenna does not have him describe those signs, much to the relief of the jury and probably everyone else in the courtroom.
“Were you able to identify the body?”
He nods. “She still had her wallet in her possession, with her driver’s license and credit cards in it. Also, her car was in the parking lot, and it contained her registration and insurance card.”
“Any cash?”
“Twelve bucks.”
“What did the fact that her car was there tell you?”
“Again, I was just gathering information at that point, but it was and is pretty clear that her killer had his own means of transportation.”
When I get to question Oglesby, I say, “I’m going to ask you some questions. Please either answer them, or if you can’t, just say, ‘I don’t know.’”
Jenna objects that I’m improperly instructing the witness, and Judge Stiller sustains. My first question for Oglesby is “Let’s start with your last comment about transportation. You said the killer had his own means of transportation. What type of transportation was it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Was it a car? A bicycle? Did he take a bus and walk to the stadium?”
“I can’t say.”
“Why can’t you say?”
“Because I don’t know the answer.”
I nod. “Okay. Were the killer and Ms. McNeil the only two people present?”
“I can’t say for sure.”
“You don’t know?” I ask.
“Correct.”
“As to the exact place where you found the body, is that where she was killed?”
“I saw no evidence otherwise.”
“So you’re certain of it?”
“Not certain, no.”
“Why was Kristen McNeil at Hinchliffe Stadium?”
“You want me to speculate?”
“No. If you’re sure, then please tell us. If you don’t know, that’s fine too. I’m only interested in facts.”
“I can’t be sure.”
“Okay,” I say. “Now that we know what you don’t know, let’s move on to what you do know. I know we are going to hear from the medical examiner later, but if you know, what was the cause of death?”
“Strangulation.”
“Was her neck broken?”
“Yes.”
“If you were to grab someone from behind and choke them, would their neck necessarily break in that fashion?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Would there have to be a violent twisting, rather than just a choking?”
“Probably.”
“Sort of the way it is taught in hand-to-hand combat in the military?”
“I couldn’t say.”
I nod. “Okay. For most of the fourteen years since the murder, was Noah Traynor on a suspect list?”
“No.”
“You never questioned him?”
“No.”
“Had you ever even heard the name Noah Traynor before the DNA match came through?”
“No, I don’t believe so.”
“Did you interview many of Kristen’s friends?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“None of them mentioned him?”
“No.”
“Once he became a suspect, did you check him out fully? Look into his past?”
“Of course.”
“Did he have any convictions before the day Kristen McNeil was killed?”
“No.”
“Any arrests, before or since?”
“No.”
“Speeding tickets? Illegal parking?”
“No.”
“Littering? Swearing in public?”
Jenna stands and objects, but before she can get it out, Oglesby has already answered, “No.”
“Lieutenant, in your experience, is it unusual for a person to commit a vicious, almost professional-style, cold-blooded murder and yet live the entire rest of his life without doing anything wrong?”
“Every case is different.”
I frown. “Thank you for sharing that. No further questions.”
The conversation with Carpenter left Kennon more than a little unsure about what to do.
Carpenter seemed to be coming after NetLink Systems in general, and Arthur Wainwright in particular; Carpenter as much as said so. Kennon wasn’t sure how to react, or if he needed to react at all.
Finally, he decided to talk about it with Kyle Wainwright. Not wanting to do so in the office, they met for a drink at a small bar in Englewood, not far from where Kyle lived.
They ordered drinks and Kyle said, “Don’t keep me in suspense; what did you want to talk about?”
“Andy Carpenter.”
“Has he been around again?”
Kennon nodded. “I talked to him out of the office. He’s asking a bunch of questions about people that Kristen was friendly with at NetLink.”
“How would you know who she was friendly with?”
“I wouldn’t, and that’s what I told him. But the reason we’re here is that he’s asking questions specifically about your father. I think he has the idea that he might have been having an affair with Kristen.”
Kyle laughed. “Oh, come on … seriously?”
“He didn’t come out and say it, but that’s the impression I got.”
“My father barely even touched my mother. Maybe once, and they had me. My father figured that was plenty.”
“You’re missing the point, Kyle. If he thinks that Arthur was having an affair with Kristen, it’s a short jump to thinking he killed her to cover it up. All Carpenter is interested in is blaming someone else for the murder.”
“Let him try.”
“You’re not thinking about the company. If Carpenter winds up accusing Arthur in open court, it could spook our clients. Once a charge like that is out there, it never completely goes away, no matter what. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not.”
“Shit.”
“And sometimes it never gets erased,” Ken
non said.
“You’re not saying you think it could be true, are you?”
Kennon shook his head. “That’s not the Arthur I know, not even close, but people do crazy things. It could have been an accident, but … no, at the end of the day I don’t think it could be true.”
“You think I should tell him what Carpenter is doing?”
“It might help him deal with this; maybe he’d hire a lawyer to keep Carpenter off his ass.”
“Why don’t you tell him?”
Kennon laughed at the idea. “No chance. In a lot of ways Arthur has been like a father to me, but he’s not actually my father. That honor falls to you.”
“I’ll think about it. But that is not a conversation I would look forward to. He’d go absolutely batshit crazy.”
Kennon laughed again and stood up. “My work here is done.” Then, “Seriously, I may be reading too much into this, but I thought you should know. I don’t think your father is in any jeopardy, but if Carpenter makes public noises, it could be aggravating for him. That’s all.”
Kyle nodded. “I hear you.”
I’m of two minds about Janet Carlson.
Outside the courtroom she is a pleasure … smart, funny, and compassionate. She is also, without a doubt, the best-looking coroner on the planet.
That’s not a particularly high bar; most coroners that I’ve met aren’t what you would consider lookers. Few beauty-pageant contestants say, “I want to create world peace, eliminate hunger, and cut up as many dead bodies as I can get my hands on.”
But inside the courtroom, and particularly on the witness stand, I’m not a big fan of hers. By definition she always testifies for the prosecution, which makes her my enemy. Her intelligence, coupled with her calm and unruffled demeanor, make her someone I don’t look forward to questioning.
Jenna has no such reservations. She starts by asking if Janet did the autopsy on Kristen McNeil.
“No, that was done by Dr. Paul Griffith; he was my predecessor.”
“Dr. Griffith has since passed away, is that correct?”
Janet nods. “Yes. Six years ago.”
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